Avalon Vineyard

Avalon Vineyard is situated on the site of a historic vineyard near Glastonbury and was started from scratch by myself, Hugh Tripp, and my wife, Hilary. Starting on just half an acre in 1981, our first wines won awards in national competitions. Encouraged, we bought more land to expand plantings and build our own winery. From the start we were committed to organic principles. This was facilitated by our choice of resistant ‘hybrid’ varieties of vine that do not need to be sprayed with fungicide (which is something that happens even in many organic vineyards). I was already a keen cider-maker, so we established a cider orchard as well and inter-planted with soft fruit for the sake of diversity. This diversification has been vital to our success. We now make an extensive range of fruit wines, mead, liqueurs and cider. These complement our Dry White English Wine and a limited edition of Sparkling Wine, whilst the ‘scrumpy’ cider brings in a steady stream of customers to our farm shop. We have been enormously helped in all this work by a steady stream of volunteers, known as WWOOFers (Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms), from all over the world, of all ages and from all walks of life.